


Painting flowers

by iwaois



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Art student!Tsukki, Future Fic, I wrote when I was angry, IMSORRY, M/M, Navy!Kuroo, Sadness, Sex, Smoking, but just implied, this is just angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 07:29:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4295976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwaois/pseuds/iwaois
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tsukishima never wanted to get attached, never wanted his life to turn out this way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Painting flowers

**Author's Note:**

> AU in which Japanese people can join the American navy lmao

When I wake up  
Dream isn't done  
I want to see your face and know I made it home

 

Tsukishima Kei wasn't what you'd call a hopeless romantic. He wanted it clean, quick, and over soon. At the age of 24, he's had enough of high school crushes, relationships which had a goal, drive-in movies and anything similar. 

Or so he thought, before he ran into him again, after almost 8 years.

Honestly, he didn't think Kuroo Tetsurou would remember him. They met in his first year of high school, when the cat captain was already in his final year. Tsukishima wouldn't say they were friends, even if they did spend a couple of evenings practicing blocking until they fell asleep at the gym floor from exhaustion, long after Akaashi went to bed and Bokuto snored on the bench. Kuroo went to college soon after, and they haven't seen him when Karasuno faced Nekoma again. Kei himself decided to go to art school after graduation, developing his hidden talent. Yamaguchi had been the only one that has seen his doodles, since he was the only friend close enough to spend enough time in his room and his heart to be allowed to see private things.  
Yamaguchi was still in Japan now, teaching volleyball to children, while Tsukishima was in America, studying art. They talked on the phone every day still, exchanging gossips and promises of seeing each other on the next free period the college gave him.   
Once he was in America, he never thought he'd see a familiar face again, until one night he was at a bar, in his favourite dark corner, sketching a large sailboat. The room was smoky, crappily lit and the music was almost as awful as the coffee, but he had privacy, something he always treasured.

He had privacy indeed, until he noticed him. 

It was when a marine fleet came in, possibly to drink away all those months at sea or at war, maybe pick up a couple of local waitresses to make up for all those lonely days spend surrounded by men. Tsukishima paid them nothing more than a glance over his glasses, so naturally he didn't notice Kuroo until he approached.

"Wait - Tsukki?"

The blonde looked up and - wow. He'd changed in those years Kei hasn't seen him.  
He was around 27 now, even taller and more muscular. The blue navy uniform complimented every element of his body, nicely bringing out his biceps and just tight enough around his chest for it not to be too much. His blue sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and Tsukishima saw a tattoo - an elegant, black anchor with letters surrounding it in a circle. "Liberty before death", the tattoo said, "death before dishonor." He liked it.

"Yes?"  
"It's Kuroo! You know, your crush from high school!"  
Eyes rolled, and oh, he remembered. At least his attitude stayed the same.   
"I recall", he said, tone bored.  
Kuroo obviously thought it was a green light for him to sit down and order beer for both of them.   
He didn't know how it happened, but the next thing he knew, Kuroo was in his room, pressing him against the bed, and he saw stars. He didn't care how, because he was that kind of person - to leave in the morning. Just what he wanted, no commitment, no strings attached, no tears.  
Or so he thought.  
When he woke up, the ravenette was still in his bed, arm around him and a cigarette in his lips. The tattoo was just somewhere around his face, so Tsukishima took a minute to admire it before talking. 

"Get out."  
"You don't mean that. Round two?"

Tsukishima hated him. He still does, in a way, especially because he was unable to say no.

***

Months passed - too many - and he kept coming back. At first it was just sex - really good sex - but then Kuroo began to stay for breakfast, stay to cuddle, ask for his phone number, come early at night and bring movies and Japanese food to awaken memories and make him happy. It was growing more into a relationship than a casual side dish day by day, and Kei found himself unable to prevent it. He got attached - something he always tried to avoid - and before he knew it he began to get used to bitter comments directed at the American government and the smell of smoke in the morning.   
One night, before Kuroo got the chance to initiate things, he asked to draw him. After a few asked questions, they spent the night talking in the half-lit room, pencil running over paper as those unforgettable spikes of hair began to form on it. He smiled a lot, more than usual, at the snickers and the dumb jokes and the stories of the sea and the boat and how lovely he looked that night.  
He offered Kuroo the drawing once done, but he said to keep it, so he put it in his sketch book, along with the other drawings. Although, later on in his life he visited that particular drawing a lot more than the others. 

***

"Can we still do this-?" Tsukishima's had enough of this undefined relation, this not labeled relationship which wasn't quite love but not quite not.   
"Of course we can", Kuroo's nose was against his soon, and he was weak at his closeness as he always was.  
"Why me?", the questions never ended.  
"Because I love you", Kuroo said that sometimes, sometimes jokingly and sometimes in a half-asleep state, but not seriously, never seriously, and it hurt.   
"No, you don't", his eyes burned, but the glass of his glasses covered it.  
"I do, I really do. I'm also leaving", a sigh, "to a mission. Iraq. They're sending me to war, imagine."  
A sting of something he couldn't quite put his finger on struck his heart, and his eyebrows furrowed.  
"When?"  
"In two weeks", Kuroo's voice was softer, quieter than usual. "Will you wait for me", he kept on mumbling, "once I'm there? Do you love me?"  
"I'll wait for you", he found himself breathing out automatically before it even reached his brain. Of course he'll wait. Nobody he was attached to has ever quite meant this much to him, not after so much time of sharing his life with them, with the exception of Yamaguchi, but that was different. Of course he'll wait, because he had a hard time imagining life without his fingers tangling into that unruly black hair and running them over that tattoo in the morning, or making an extra cup of coffee, or having someone complain and breathe at his neck while he tried to study.

The two weeks might've as well been two minutes, that's how fast they passed. Soon, too soon, Tsukishima found himself crying into a shoulder he'd never thought he'd cry on until a few short months ago. He hated it - the feeling of attachment, of actually being fond of someone, but he also felt that there was nothing in this world he'd give it up for.   
The boat was so slow it hurt physically to watch it leave.

***

And so, Tsukishima fell back into his old routine; school, the bar, the sketch book, the headphones. Once he was again like this, he thought that he doesn't remember it being this empty. Empty bed, empty kitchen chair, empty heart. The scent of smoke, almost permanently lingering in his sheets, comforted him while he cried at night, something that now almost turned into a routine.

Letters came, in messy handwriting and cheap paper, but written with a lot of thought put into them. Kuroo missed him, if he were to trust them, and nobody he's met here can compare to him, not in a wildest dream. The men in Iraq were - apparently - all too tense, even off of battlefield, too stiff, he had nobody to joke with. He anxiously waited to be back home, which, must to a great displeasure to both of them but according to rules, won't be soon.  
Kei replied in a neater matter; every time, he'd walk down the street to buy nice, hard, blue tinted paper, he did his best with the handwriting. He drew him red tulips, the first time, daisies the second, cherry blossoms the third. He doubted that, in the hell Kuroo was currently in, many flowers grew on the sidewalk. He'd put the paper into the envelope, along with the drawing, and prayed the letter doesn't get lost in the mail.

***

Tadashi visited somewhere in the meantime - counting time became too much of an useless effort now that he had a steady, lonely routine - and brought a little light into his life. His wide smiles, honest to the core, his confused blinking, his cheerful tone and his freckles; it almost made him forget for a while.  
"Did he say he'll get some time off and visit?", his best friend asked one morning, suddenly, while they shared their morning over mugs of coffee.  
"Shut up, Yamaguchi."  
"Heh, sorry, Tsukki."  
He honestly wasn't eager to talk about this, as if he didn't think about it every second of every day.

Tadashi left too soon, only a couple of weeks, and Tsukishima wanted him to stay longer, to fill the loneliness in his heart with his presence, wanted to goodbye hug on the airport to last a little longer.

***

The letters got rarer, Tsukishima wondered if Kuroo was forgetting that there's someone waiting on him. The scent of smoke was gone, soon coming back when he found himself pressing one of those damned thing to his own lips. Just an inhale; and his lungs burned, his mind was blurry and it hurt. It hurt, but it was the kind of pain you could get addicted to.  
He drew, he studied, he drank, he smoked, he drew again.

The letters stopped coming. A month, two, a year. He's sent countless, got none. Time passed, his heart stung harder than his lungs.

Eventually, he got a letter, but it wasn't on cheap paper, in messy handwriting, and it had the official looking navy stamp. The text brought tears to his eyes, now its common visitors, made him fall onto his knees, made him regret getting attached, made him regret saying he'd wait. None of it mattered now, of course, now that he'll never see him again.

The worst part is that he'd known, this was bound to happen, the darkest chambers of his heart were waiting for this to happen, hoping they were wrong. Because that's what war did. It killed people. It ruined the lives of the ones that loved them. He never got to tell him he loved him. But he did, he does.

An occasional cigarette just turned into chain smoking, occasional visit to that booth where they met became an every night obsession. Tadashi, or anyone back home, including his family, never heard from him again. 

 

If nothing is true  
What more can I do,  
I am still painting flowers for you.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello darkness my old friend,


End file.
